Young Christians in Evangelical America

I stumbled upon an article by Michael Craven from February 18th at Crosswalk.com. It's a very telling article, and I have seen some of my own experiences in the ones that he relates. The title is: "They Love Jesus; They Don't Like the Church" It is all about the general state of attitude among younger Christians in America. I found the article to be well-written and probably right on the money about most of what it said. I would definitely say it is worth the read. http://www.crosswalk.com/11568526/

As an older believer I wonder, what are the greatest influences on the minds of these young believers? How do they form the opinions that make it into the "latest Barna poll." (Oh how tired I am of reading those words). For my part, at risk of sounding like a geezer, I am willing to bet that magazines, television and internet media play a huge role in formulating a general impression in their minds about how Christianity is viewed by much of the world. Having taken college courses and had my faith blasted by or dismissed by a teacher, I no doubt share such experiences with many of those believers under thirty.

In my own church we are blessed with a pastor who, though he has opinions like everyone else, stands up steadfastly for the word of God. You will not find him teaching from the newest book written by some religious scholar. He may read it or comment on scholarly works as they relate to a biblical passage, but when one asks, "What is the best commentary on the Bible?" one will almost always receive the same answer there. "The Bible is the best commentary on the Bible." There is an element of familiarity and family that this tends to promote within the body.

I have commented in the past on my concerns about the emergent movement that is growing in this country within evangelicalism. While not critical of the emergent movement, the ditches that it could fall into are addressed in a very fair manner. My deepest concern is that the higher profile leaders of emergent movement could succeed at changing evangelicalism into something that it ought not to be. That is not a stretch, because there is already much within evangelicalism that does not belong. While there are plenty of great teachers using television and internet mediums to reach the lost, there are probably a lot more that could use a good boot. This is an era where many young people take their current events cues from John Stewart, after all.

I will say something that I believe is critical, and that some may even view as controversial. It shouldn't be though. Some people concentrate on studying the Bible to almost the exclusion of all else, because it is what they know. Some people do the same thing with the doctrine. For others, their whole thing is apologetics. Those things are wonderful, and they have their place, but they are not Jesus.

We have a relationship with Jesus. We do not have a relationship with the Bible, with doctrine, with apologetics and other things related to Christianity. We can enjoy those things, but we have a relationship with Jesus Christ because we have a relationship with Him, personally, and we ought to rejoice in that. Generally speaking, I think the young people spoken of in this article seem to get that.